Manga Spotlight May'25

Mr. Mallow Blue

📅 Last Updated: 7th May 2025

Your Name is a widely beloved movie. It's not my favourite Shinkai (that would be Suzume), but I did enjoy it. Despite its magical premise, the film has a simple charm rooted in its relatability and realism...for the most part. Many have noted some aspects of unrealism in the film, most notably the fact that no one seems to look at calendars or device date/time, which would've informed them of one of the film's key twists a lot earlier. But to me, its least realistic aspect is one of its most iconic: the way Taki and Mitsuha react to getting body-switched. No doubt the way the film does it lends itself to some classic hormonal teen humour...but is that how one would actually react? I firmly believe a more realistic treatment of those scenes would be laden with panic and fear. We take our own identities for granted, both physical and mental. These are our zero coordinates that anchor us in this world. Our world is not the entire Earth, but the small subset of people, places, and things we interact with. To no longer be you is akin to your entire world vanishing. Think of it less like a simple switching of bodies and more like getting reincarnated in another world. You wake up under an unfamiliar ceiling, feel unfamiliar weather conditions around you, and see an unfamiliar face in the mirror. Would you look at that face and think about what genitals you might have? Certainly not! You'd react like you'd just seen a ghost, because it might as well be one. That isn't anyone you know, and that certainly isn't you.

But who are you, even? Who are you when you are not you? Beyond the realm of fantasy, there are many real-life people who think such thoughts and feel such emotions, for a multitude of reasons; trauma, abuse, and mental illness can lead to a denial of one's true self, calculated or otherwise. A harrowing scene from the Ghibli film The Tale of the Princess Kaguya comes to mind: when the Emperor forces himself upon Kaguya-hime, causing her so much mental anguish that she just disappears, becoming a spectral version of herself. This may be folklore fantasy, but many real life victims of sexual assault recount having gone through what they can only describe as out-of-body experiences, when the only way they can cope with the horror being inflicted upon their body is to completely dissociate from it, to become a spectator to their own nightmare.

It is a sheer stroke of genius on the part of Samamiya Akaza that she explores these themes of self and un-self along both axes: fantasy and realism, side by side, each one a mirror to the other. Like the thematically relevant colour-changing herbal tea that lends its name to the title, Mr. Mallow Blue is a creation rooted in real phenomena and yet truly magical. However while it starts off as a similarly minimal three-ingredient tea, Mr. Mallow Blue proves to be a complex cocktail, a patchwork of many interacting characters sewn together by many intersecting threads.

The story begins with Aoi, a young man who wishes to cease existing. Tricked by people's masquerades, betrayed by those he thought close to him, and bullied to the point of breaking -- he is a mere shadow of a person, a being that has lost all its will to fight for its place in the world. He believes deep down that he is just another unwanted item in his trash-littered apartment. His attempt to, ahem, take out the trash is somewhat botched, however; instead of dying, he opens his eyes, but they are no longer his eyes. Those eyes belong to Sakura, a girl in another city and many years younger. As does 'his' body, lying sprawled on the floor at the base of a staircase in an establishment most unfamiliar to a dropout like him: a school. Before him lies another sprawled body, that of Minazuki, a pretty young man. An angel, thinks Aoi. Far from it, however; he hasn't reincarnated in heaven but is instead still in the purgatory called the real-world, only in a new role. So too is the case for the real Sakura, now in Aoi's body. For these fallen angels, things are about to get hellish.

Mr. Mallow Blue is as high as high drama can get while still being grounded, and its effortless blending of fantastical and realist elements are to thank for that. Aoi reacts to becoming 'Sakura' as we'd expect: first by assuming he's looking at anything but reality, then with fear and panic as I'd reasoned earlier. And then he follows with something that ought to be a logical next step if we think it through but which is so rare for premises of this kind -- he just straight up tells Minazuki, the boy he collided with, that he is in fact not Sakura but a twentysomething man named Aoi. As I'd learnt in my childhood for situations like these: when in doubt, spit it out. The catch? Minazuki believes him.

Why does he believe something so outlandish? And why did Sakura jump down a flight of stairs to collide with Minazuki, with the explicit intent of switching bodies with him? As we learn more about these two, we come to a better understanding of why the early story panned out the way it did. I don't want to say too much, but they have troubled backstories that inform their thought processes and actions, and further play with the concepts of identity and one's dissatisfaction with it. This is a story of people so deep in despair that they wish they could be someone else, anyone but themselves. Yet Mr. Mallow Blue begs the question of whether this is truly a solution. Does abandoning your original self and becoming a new person make all your life's problems go away, or does it simply replace them with a new set of problems? The pretty boy who is well liked by all may not have the life you think he leads. The girls who hate each other may not have always done so, or even have reason to do so now. It may be a much-maligned trope in romance manga, but there's a reason we misunderstand each order all the time. Humans are complex beings, hard to understand fully. We know practically nothing of what another person lives with, just as they know nothing of us.

The manga also reminds me of Hagio Moto's harrowing masterpiece of a one-shot Hanshin: Half-God (consider this a strong recommendation for that manga too, although I will write a separate one in the future). This is partly due to their shared exploration of uncertain joint identity, but also because of the sheer number of lenses the manga invites you to analyse it with. Chiefly among them are gender and sexuality. A man who is now in the body of a girl whose mind is now in his old body, and interacts with a boy who knew said girl, while his old body's new mind now interacts with another girl she was once closer-than-close with...there is no way this rollercoaster of changes couldn't lend itself to queer commentary, much like Hanshin. Many real life queer people feel trapped in the wrong body or unable to live their true lives. Some are finally able to break free of that tortured existence and openly announce their intent to live as they wish, but are quickly met with even more sources of stress and trauma, from people who wish to tie them down to their notions of who they are and who they should be. And just like with Aoi, it can take meeting the right person to liberate you from these bindings and make things begin to change for you.

Speaking of which, I am blown away by how adorable Aoi and Minazuki are together. A shut-in adult man who likes cute things, now in a body where he can openly engage with all things cute and dainty, alongside a sincere and supportive younger boy who has his own problems, and the two help each other heal and become whole...wait are you telling me the younger guy loves hairstyling?? This ticks all my boxes. It's like if Koisuru Otome no Tsukurikata (a favourite of mine, consider this yet another incidental recommendation) suddenly became less fluffy and a lot more dramatic. I don't care if everything and everyone else meets a tragic end, but please let these two get their happily ever after. I fear the alternative would break me harder than the characters. They are perfect for each other.

This has already become far too long and sprawling, more an incoherent rant than a neat review, so suffice it to say that I highly recommend Mr. Mallow Blue. The gravity of its fantastical scenario enhances the believability of its drama; for instance, the scenario is so serious that it makes perfect sense for these kids to utter dead serious lines that would have otherwise sounded corny or unrealistic, like "I believe you", "I trust you", and so on. Real-life teens are far too concerned with not appearing "cringe" to be emotionally sincere like that, but truly drastic circumstances strip those pretences away, leaving behind the purest forms of who they truly are. There it is, yet another form of identity and un-identity that this story explores, one that I hadn't considered when I started writing this. To (poorly) rephrase an analogy from Shrek, the story is like an onion: it has layers upon layers to peel off, and each one will make you cry.

Horrible analogy, right? I can feel this review outlasting its welcome, so this is your cue to stop reading this and start reading Mr. Mallow Blue. Who knows what subtle flavour you may detect in this deceptively simple three-character brew, what entire universe you may find lying within this small 6 volume long teacup, what sheer complexity you may realize human hearts to be hiding within themselves.

Japanese title: Mr.マロウブルー
Status: Ongoing (ending soon, 6 volumes in total)
Magazine: Asuka
Demographic: shoujo
Genre(s): drama, supernatural, mystery, romance, thriller, boys love, yuri

Please request English publishers to license this manga!

More Info: MAL, Anilist, Official Website
Credits: Sakaido (Twitter)

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